Worries In The Sand

I write my worries in the sand. They stretch across the beach, one after another. I shake as I write them – the pain intense. Finally, I finish. I walk away from them and sit down on the dry sand above the tide line to wait. The waves rush in, lapping over the words, washing them away. The tension leaves my shoulders as the sand smooths out, but the pain is still there. Will death wash away aches like the tide waters? Will I become smooth like the sand as I wash out into the eternal sea of the next horizon?

From Guest Contributor Tyrean Martinson

Tyrean is a daydreamer, believer, and writer from the Pacific Northwest.

Hindsight

Debbie got high last night.

Her conscience weighed on her, but not enough to refuse her friends. There was no explicit peer pressure. Rather, not joining in would have meant that she'd forever be considered apart from them..

Once the high came on, her reservations disappeared. It was the best decision she'd ever made.

Twelve hours later, lying in bed as the guilt tries to set in along with the nausea, she's no longer so sure. Hindsight suggests getting high was a mistake.

Debbie remembers kissing Eric Bradshaw and decides that no one listens to hindsight. No one cool anyway.

Lift The Perfume

Lift the perfume, dust, put it back down.Lift the box, dust, put it back down.Lift the moisturizer, see her initials, freeze.JS.Just last week she was teasing me about cleaning our bedroom.Well, my bedroom now.Since the accident.Not an accident, a stupid drunk drove into the side of the car.The violent end replays in my mind.My room is silent now. No more laughing. No more cuddling. No more urging me to clean up.Just an alone silence. An empty room.I put down the moisturizer.Lift another perfume, dust, put it back down.

From Guest Contributor Rodney Goodall

Relationships

I was about to toss you out. End our years of coexistence.

Reminiscing helped me see you in a new light. Made me realize how goodyou’ve been to me.

Through difficult as well as good times you were there for me. Yourgoal to please was simple. You aimed to brighten my dark evenings andmake me feel safe at night when I couldn’t sleep.

I’m thankful for your enduring warmth. For without you, I wouldn’thave been able to orientate myself in these surroundings. Nor read myfavorite books.

Lamp I’ve owned for countless years, we belong together.

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna writes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Her work hasbeen published at: Nailpolish Stories, 50-Word Stories, 100 wordstory, 101 Words, Boston Literary Magazine, From the Depths (HauntedWaters Press), ShortbreadStories, SixWordMemoirs, and EspressoStories.

Rain Day

I stare out the window watching the torrents of rain pound the leaves on my maple tree and listen to the ferocious wind hit against the siding of my house. My dog Patty barks and scratches the windowpane. I pull her next to me on the couch and rub her stomach, the only thing that soothes her. Roads are closed due to flooding and I’m stuck at home.

I had an argument with my boss yesterday about not getting enough time off. Now I’m home and bored out of my mind watching the clock.

It’s funny how things turn out.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Honest

She rarely lied. Sure, there was the occasional well-intended compliment to spare someone's feelings. She might make a prevarication of convenience when the full story would take too long to explain. She didn't consider these lies.

And it certainly wasn't dishonest to keep her genuine opinions hidden when the truth could serve no purpose but to engender an argument. Even when she was honest, he would challenge her and pick apart every little detail, hoping to catch her in a falsehood. So what difference did it make if not everything was one hundred percent the truth?

But she rarely lied.

Penny

It was a brisk autumn afternoon, with variegated leaves cascading over the pavement before congregating in the gutter. A penny caught his eye, resting Lincoln-side up in the middle of the sidewalk. He wanted to ignore it, but rather than speed past, he reflexively slowed and glanced behind him. The closest pedestrian was a block behind him.

He tried to bend at the knees, reach down for the penny, and place it into his pocket in one sweeping motion. He didn't need to be pinching pennies, but he wasn't really in a place to leave money just sitting there either.

The Left Eye Is Enough

Because you can see. It is other people who have the problem--flies cannot understand singular vision; pros and cons blink in unison. Suits and snoots on the train and even the grubs on the street shoot sideways sneers and whispers, feary scowls and snickers. The nothingness bothers them, the absence of the right, smooth as burned-off fingerprints. They are not convinced by your best prosthetic and toss you pity, a reward for your emulation of their normalcy. Dark glasses and patches insult the blind and pirates. Your final answer is the biggest lie by the bluntest knife: a wound.From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat

Brook holds a BA from Vassar College and an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University. She teaches college writing and is the co-owner and chief editor of BluePlanetJournal.com. Her nonfiction, poetry, and flash fiction have appeared in Creations Magazine, Little India, Outpost, Nowhere Poetry, and The Syzygy Poetry Journal.

Supermarket Sleep

Wednesdays, post-second shift, bone-marrow tired, Kyra grocery-shopped. To stay alert, she categorized customers, itemized their purchases.

First: class, marital status, number of kids, happiness level. Pony-tailed woman opposite Kyra? Pinching pants tight in the crotch? Must be married ten years; barely making do managing odd-lots store; two sucrose-loving preteens; miserable as a mutt, minus flea collar, August.

Cart contents: Pony tail and family down waffles, wings, PB & J, rolls, store-brand sherbet, Bud, Coke.

Kyra’d be sad, eating that.

Pulled leggings, smoothed hair. Double-take: her mirrored reflection! She’d best snap out of this, load check-out counter. Be on her way.

From Guest Contributor Iris N. Schwartz

Iris is a fiction and nonfiction writer, as well as a Pushcart-Prize-nominated poet. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in such journals as Bindweed Magazine, Connotation Press, The Flash Fiction Press, Jellyfish Review, Quail Bell Magazine, and Random Sample Review.

Homage To Discworld King

The tall caped figure dismounted the midnight horse and negotiated cracked paving to knock on nondescript door.

Bright dancing eyes and grey beard yanked it open. “Well?”

Taken aback, Death cleared his throat. “HELLO.”

“Bugger ‘HELLO’, what kept you?”

“UM!”

Author pushed past the cowled figure.

“ER… DON’T YOU WANT TO DRESS?” Death waved a skeletal digit at the grimy T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.

Author pointed his beard aggressively. “That would be rather pointless now, wouldn’t it?”

Death sighed and followed the little man to the waiting steed. He was sure he’d forgotten something.

“OH YES.”

He raised the scythe.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid